Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hands-free apparatus, and more particularly, to a hands-free apparatus that is connected with an electronic instrument such as a mobile phone or an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III (MP3) player by wire and/or wireless so as to enable communication or listening to music without directly operating the electronic instrument by hand.
Description of the Related Art
Hands-free apparatuses are apparatuses that allow functions of electronic instruments such as mobile phones or MP3 players to be controlled by wire or wireless, and have been developed and used to improve convenience by reducing use of the hand during using the electronic instruments. It was formerly common to connect the hands-free apparatus to the electronic instruments such as mobile phones by wire. Recently, with the development of short-distance wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth that connect the electronic instruments such as mobile phones, computers, printers, facsimile, televisions (TVs), and refrigerators, many wireless hands-free apparatuses have been developed and used. In detail, hands-free apparatuses for short-distance wireless communications such as Bluetooth ear-set/headset providing the convenience of wireless because the short-distance wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth are mounted in the electronic instruments such as mobile phones have been made popular. In addition to Bluetooth, various technologies such as Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Ultra WideBand (UWB), binary code-division multiple access (CDMA), Wibree, etc. have been successively developed, and thus the hands-free apparatuses have been further diversified.
The hands-free apparatuses can be divided into a stereo type in which two earphones are inserted into both ears for the purpose of mainly listening audio such as music or a foreign language, and a mono type in which one earphone is inserted into one ear alone for the purpose of mainly talking on the telephone. Further, the hands-free apparatuses can be divided into a separable type in which an earphone(s) can be separated from the hands-free apparatus, and an integrated type in which an earphone is mounted in the hands-free apparatus.
The separable type hands-free apparatuses are mostly configured to wear or attach a hands-free apparatus main body around the neck or to clothes to connect the earphone(s) to the hands-free apparatus main body by wire when used. The separable type hands-free apparatuses using the short-distance wireless communication actually provide convenience only to large appliances such as TV. In view of the fact that the basic object of the separable type hands-free apparatuses is to apply wireless technology to provide the convenience of wear and use, the separable type hands-free apparatuses provide the convenience of wear and use in that they are worn around the neck when in use thanks to slightly lighter weight than the compact portable instruments such as mobile phones or MP players. However, the separable type hands-free apparatuses do not particularly provide the convenience of wireless, because a cord should be used to be worn around the neck, and because wiring should be provided to connect the hands-free apparatus main body and the earphone(s).
In addition to this, among the hands-free apparatuses for the wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth, the integrated type in which a hands-free apparatus main body and an earphone(s) are integrated and the earphone portion is directly inserted and used has been much used of late. The apparatuses of this type can be reliably fixed to the ear, and are worn around the neck using a cord or are separately stored when not in use. However, since the integrated type is used in such a manner that the hands-free apparatus itself is directly inserted into the ear, the integrated type is inconvenient when worn for a long time, and is difficult to fix to the ear in the case of violent activities.
In this way, the existing hands-free apparatuses are configured to be able to use only one of the integrated type that is inserted into the ear when in use and the separable type that is worn around the neck and is connected with the earphone by wiring. Thus, these hands-free apparatuses are restricted by the fact that one hands-free apparatus cannot selectively use several types so as to be suitable for circumstances.